Hackers leap from dark basements to world stage

This article is nonsense written by someone with no understanding of the subculture:

Rebels united by their hacking prowess and identified by sassy pseudonyms have been divided into “white hat” groups that use software skills for good and their “black hat” rivals intent on anything from pranks and political upheaval to espionage or crimes of profit.

No. Crimes of profit would be "black hat", but pranks and leaking information that has been classified contrary to the public good would be seen as "white hats" by the vast majority of hackers. ... and sometimes some profit is to be made while serving the public good, which makes things really fuzzy.

The public is notoriously fickle about information leaks, with hard-line government supporters trying to shoot the messenger rather than being angry with the government officials that betrayed their trust.

As long as the pranks don't hurt anyone the public normally laughs along with everyone else. There was a good one recently in Hong Kong where they changed the sign on an electronic billboard on the top of a building.

In hacker groups such as Anonymous, amazing code or stunning exploits are revered and personal glory-seeking abhorred, according to Coleman.

Again a complete lack of understanding. Within Anonymous (i.e. these individuals peer group) they receive plenty of recognition and glory, and the opinion of those outside their peer group (i.e. Joe Public) is irrelevant because they wouldn't understand a particularly clever piece of hacking if it walked up and hit them with a fish.

“Hackers don’t always follow the rules, but that is different from having integrity and ethics,” Sell said.

And in any group you'll find those with or without integrity and ethics. These groups have a strong "don't rat" ethic, and that means that their only real stick when someone steps out of line is to shun them for a while, and even when members step over the line into criminal or vindictive behavior the community will still defend them from "outsiders" like the police simply because the "insider" has information that could compromise the group.

Hackers are a subculture like any subculture. They may be noble social activists serving the public good or they may be the equivalent of someone spray-painting social messages on the walls of your apartment building... and often it is very hard to tell the two apart.

This article's talk about "white hats" and "black hats" betrays a complete lack of understanding of this subculture, or ANY culture. It is a set of generalizations that makes this article utterly useless and ill-informed.

Sorry but I can't ever take any kind of group serious that is related to sites like 4chan. They have a reputation of being a bunch of paedophile anarchists more than anything else.

General bubblegum article written by someone with next to no understanding of the subject at hand. Sloppy journalism - amusing at best, insulting at worst. Much of the content runs on the quotes of two people, one of whom has also written a book, but, by all accounts, has but a tenuous grasp of hacker culture herself.

CGB Spender, too, is in the dark, with his broad comment and lack of insight. You know nothing about what hackers do and your generalization just helps. Thanks.

The event ... was started by Jeff Moss, known by the handle Dark Tangent,

There was an old comic book called D'Arc Tangent that ran for one issue. I guess it was probably a term from literature somewhere, but now all the google hits are about the hacker.

http://fraziersbrain.blogspot.com/2008/12/out-of-vault-darc-tangent.html

@John Lawrence I know enough about hackers and I do know there are different kinds of them but generally when I read anywhere that that kind of group is somehow related to sites like 4chan - which are indisputably the cesspit of the Internet - then that little bit of credibility that these kind of figures have left is completely swiped away. I do also know that they steal credit card information and try to rob the money from innocent, hard-working citizens (I have first-hand experience). This is because they aren't Robin Hood, they are just a bunch of anarchists who don't care.